So I finally got around to reading the Yashar piece (not even going to do a 'Y*shar' since the last time I tried that, he found/screenshotted it in less than 10 min) & my recommendation is, if you were hesitating, definitely read it. It's really good. lamag.com/mag-features/y…
I thought of Yashar as some sort of irritating, rich fail-son, who was a massive celebrity clout chaser that would just shamelessly seek attention (much of which was just blatant bait like, 'omg anyone who likes avocado is just wrong.' & 'The Beatles are so basic. Don't @ me.')
(And btw I believed he was the rich, fail-son of some wealthy Iranian family, because he led everyone to believe that. In reality, his parents both work(ed) at the Univ. of Illinois, which tbh is much cooler but I guess didn't fit the 'image' he was going for.)
Now after reading the piece, it's pretty clear that he's less of a benign clout chaser & much more malevolent. Part that fake German socialite Anna Sorokan, part Shaun King & a dash of Glenn Greenwald. He appears to be a serial manipulator, fraud and kind of a fabulist.
Rather than a wealthy trust-fund 'socialite', he seems to be a broke guy who doesn't have a real job or any income but just uses his connections to emotionally manipulate people out of money.
And again...
Just keeping a normal excel spreadsheet of all my celebrity friends, including their personal contacts, that I will produce at a moments notice to prove how important I am.
He squatted in Kathy Griffin's house until Joan Walsh helped her work up the courage to kick him out lol
Real Shaun King vibes.
A lot of his 'reporting' has clear conflicts (b/c he has no editor) and seems to be thinly veiled 'defend my friends/go after my enemies'. Never trust someone, much less a journalist, who thinks they've "never gotten anything wrong.
Also, he's extremely vindictive, to the point where people didn't want to go on the record with their thoughts on him (which was how GG was treated by most, up until a couple years ago).
Extremely weirdly, no one can actually recall how they became friends with him?
I'll just end it with this. Nothing else to add but LOL.
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So the NYT politics guys did a Reddit AMA several days ago. This was the top upvoted post. And then the extremely predictable (point proving) response.
And the predictably smug/condescending follow-up
Needless to say, they were heavily down-voted and deluged with (acurate) negative comments like these
#factcheck: Hamas is not keeping the hostages to rape them, they are just raping the hostages they are keeping for unrelated other reasons.
What....is even going on anymore?
I just don't understand why certain people feel the need to downplay Hamas' awfulness. It's not that hard to say that Hamas is an evil terrorist group, while also believing that innocent people do not deserve to die because of it.
Again, contra the lame "oh so you blindly trust the US govt" line from the above uhh journalists, the actual things to weigh:
Side 1- Israeli govt, US govt, every open-source analyst on this site & most importantly, the fact that the hospital was not destroyed
Side 2- Hamas' word
So yeah, I guess it's a real he-said, she-said if you just ignore everything but the competing government claims & also only pretend that the USG/Israel's 'lies' matter and not the fact that the initial claims by Hamas of the hospital being destroyed & 500-1000 dead, were a lie.
A lot of people I respect really, really showed their asses. And if they want to be able to maintain any sort of 'high ground' when it comes to journalistic integrity, really should at least make a basic statement that they got out over their skis.
And of course a lot of people who I don't really respect, but I don't expect them to ever admit they were wrong. Because that's just not what people do #onhere.
I'm not slightly 'gloating'. This entire site & almost all of the media falsely/uncritically ran with a characterization that relied solely on Hamas' word and created a major international incident. Sorry, if you don't think that deserves to be called out.
Just did a focus group with swing voters. One lady was drinking Campbell's clam chowder out of her purse thru a straw. One man asked, "Wait is Biden the Republican or Democrat?" Another inquired who the "sexy black broad" next to him was. Most were interested in voting 3rd party.
"Swing" voters are the dumbest people on earth. There is no need to treat them as virtuous. I get that not everyone follows politics like we do, but the gulfs b/w the 2 parties (and party leaders) have never been greater and if you can't figure them out, you are very, very dumb.
As far as not having seen/heard any important speeches front...the media just doesn't cover anything of substance that Biden says/does. Not with any sort of proportion to the actual importance. Now if he stumbles over some words (or a few stairs), that's a different story.